Review of Meir Bar-Ilan, Words of Gad the Seer (Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Publishing, 2016); Christian Israel, The Words of Gad the Seer: Bible Cross-Reference Edition (self-published, 2020); and Ken Johnson, Ancient Book of Gad the Seer: Referenced in 1 Chronicles 29:29 and Alluded to in 1 Corinthians 12:12 and Galatians 4:26 (self-published, 2016).

Abstract: A long-overlooked Hebrew document from an ancient Jewish colony in Cochin, India, purports to contain the words of Gad the Seer. Professor Meir Bar-Ilan has translated the text into English and has stirred interest in the fascinating document. At least two other English translations are also now available. Here we examine the story of the coming forth of the text and some issues of possible interest to Latter-day Saints, including some of Bar-Ilan’s insights in evaluating the antiquity of disputed texts. Bar-Ilan’s translation of this intriguing document and his related publications may be valuable for anyone with an interest in the Hebrew scriptures and ancient Judaism.

Meir Bar-Ilan, a prominent Jewish scholar at Israel’s Meir Bar-Ilan University, named after his grandfather,1 has published a translation of an ancient Hebrew manuscript found in India purporting to contain the words of Gad the Seer. Bar-Ilan’s Words of Gad the Seer, [Page 148]his translation of the document called “The Words of Gad the Seer,”2 is a work that might be of interest to many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Bar-Ilan believes the Hebrew document contains an authentic ancient text, but not one dating to the days of Gad the Seer as mentioned in the Old Testament. Rather, he believes it was composed around 2,000 years ago.

Gad was a prophet living at the time of David who seemed to have special status, based on 2 Samuel 24:11, which speaks of “Gad, David’s seer.” But like many prophets, Gad was not afraid to speak unpleasant things to his king (e.g., see 2 Samuel 12:1–13). One of the very few mentions of Gad occurs in 1 Chronicles 29:29, where we read that the acts of David the king were written “in the book of Gad the seer.” I have occasionally cited that verse in discussing the scriptures with others who accept the Bible to illustrate that the Bible we have might not contain all the scripture that has been written in the past. A common rejoinder is, “There may have been such a book, but if God didn’t preserve it for us in the Bible, it’s not scripture.” It would seem that there can be no such thing as lost scripture with that definition, and if it can’t be lost, it presumably can’t be found. In reply, I have asked others what they would do if a book that ancient Jews or Christians regarded and preserved as Biblical scripture became lost and then was found again?

My theoretical question perhaps became a little less theoretical with the fairly recent discovery, translation, and publication in 2016 of a long-lost manuscript that might have connections to the ancient lost book of Gad the Seer. The Hebrew document that Bar-Ilan translated has been through many human hands and may have some of the corruption common to non-canonical works such as the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, but Bar-Ilan, the scholar who has explored this text in the most detail and provided an important translation into English, believes it has ancient roots and is worthy of our attention.

The story of this unusual text may be relevant to our own and much more miraculous story of the finding, translation,